From the GREAT STATE OF MAINE…
HAPPY ELECTION DAY 2019
Hold onto your butts, kids. We're in for a long day of votin' and an even longer day of waitin' for the polls to close and results to come in. We've got a mini roundup for the C&J time capsule below the fold, but we recommend you stick with the previews and updates here on the front page from the responsible adults who run the Daily Kos Elections Team ("The Best In The Business") like clockwork.
Among the states I'll be watching with bated breath: Virginny. Not only does the legislative branch have a good shot at turning a lovely shade of blue in the former capital of the confederacy, but Juli Briskman could turn her simple, unequivocal show of defiance against one of the worst human beings living today into positive, progressive political action right in the back yard of his stupid golf resort:
Says Briskman, who’s running for a seat on the Loudoun County Board of Supervisors: “Whether it’s standing up for a cause, such as our First Amendment rights to peacefully protest the policies of the Trump administration, or working to ensure our children and teachers are given every opportunity to succeed, I do not back down when I see something is not right.”
To all the candidates of Team D mixing it up with their unhinged rivals from Team R, we wish you much luck and victory confetti.
Cheers and Jeers starts below the fold...[Swoosh!!] RIGHTNOW! [Gong!!]
Cheers and Jeers for Tuesday, November 5, 2019
Note: Hey, Republicans! There's gonna be too many voters out today, so you'll be voting tomorrow instead! Ha Ha Ha Ha Ha Ha!!! That one never gets old.
-
By the Numbers:
Days 'til the Democrats' next debate (in Georgia): 15
Days 'til America's Hometown Thanksgiving Celebration in Plymouth, Massachusetts: 15
Percent of Texans who do and do not, respectively, believe the impeachment inquiry is justified, according to a new UT/TT poll: 46%, 42%
Portion of Republicans who believe Trump doesn’t respect America's democratic traditions and institutions: 1-in-4
Percent of American adults who say they're "highly interested" in the 2020 elections, a super-high number according to a new NBC/WSJ poll: 72%
Amount by which middle-class taxes will go up if Medicare-for-All is implemented, according to Elizabeth Warren's plan: $0
Years it took for the "immovable" iron scow wreck at Niagara Falls to finally dislodge itself: 101
-
Puppy Pic of the Day: Tuesday morning wake-up call…
-
CHEERS to Election Day! By golly, it's finally here: the 2019 contests that the giant media machine tells me is the bellwether—the moss on the tree, the entrails in the dish, the Ouija Board in the dark, the signpost at the intersection, the Magic 8 Ball in my Playskool toy box—for what will happen in next year’s contests. If Democrats open a can of whupass like they did last year, then 2020 will be…something something something I don't believe the media machine and neither should you. With that in mind, here are some (but far from all) of the races on the radar today for Team D:
Maine: Infrastructure improvements bond! Portland mayor! City council and school board seats! And, at our polling place in the Portland Expo, Gladys Higginbotham's world-famous oatmeal-raisin cookies that may have a little extra something in them, or they may not. (I'm not one to nibble and tell.)
Mississippi: Jennifer Riley Collins, army veteran and former executive director of the state's ACLU, could become the next Attorney General, which would be cool, y’all.
Kentucky: In the governor's race it's incumbent Republican asshole Matt Bevin against fine, upstanding Democratic Attorney General Andy Beshear. Also: races for secretary of state and attorney general, both now occupied by Democrats and let's hope it stays that way.
Louisiana: John Bel Edwards will win another term as governor because he finally took that little girl's advice and grew a beard. (Okay, it's a clip-on beard just for today, but still…)
Virginia: Ka-BOOOOM!!!!! Tonight the entire legislature has a chance to turn blue, giving the state the chance to finally start running on all cylinders, starting with ratification of the Equal Right Amendment. Among individual candidates, we’re rooting for Juli Briskman (see above the fold) and the reelection of trans Delegate Danica Roem in District 13, who is one smart cookie who’s delivered on, as far as I can tell, all of her campaign promises from the last election.
For the full scoop and scope of today's elections, click here for Jeff Singer's detailed post. And as you rub the sleepies out of your eyes, I'll leave you with this advice: vote early and vote often. (Mainly because I'm dying to know what you look like in a mug shot.)
CHEERS to having a valid bee in your bonnet. Speaking of elections, on November 5, 1872, Susan B. Anthony (and several other feisty ladies with equality on their minds) made a beeline for her local polling place and voted for the first time. It was a shining, glorious moment for…well, for a moment, because Anthony was arrested, tried and fined $100. She said up yours, the judge said okay fine whatever, and she was free to go. Forty-eight years later, women finally secured the sacred right to vote. And 99 years after that, women are poised today to capture even more offices thus and so:
In the immortal words of one Barack Hussein Obama circa 2012: "Please proceed."
JEERS to the sound of silence. The closed-door House impeachment inquiry hearings continued yesterday…or, rather, they were supposed to continue yesterday but the Trump administration hacks scheduled to testify didn’t show up. But that didn't stop chairman Adam Schiff from releasing transcripts of previous testimony by ousted U.S. Ambassador to Ukraine Marie Yovanovich and Secretary of State Mike Pompeo's former senior adviser Michael McKinley. From the looks of it, Yovanovich's revelations were the most…um…pick your adjective: creepy, weird, damning, bizarre, looney-toons, or just damned unacceptable. And of course—of course—"America's Mayor" is in the thick of it:
Marie Yovanovitch, the ousted U.S. ambassador to Ukraine, told House impeachment investigators last month that U.S. Ambassador to the European Union Gordon Sondland told her she should tweet out support or praise for President Donald Trump if she wanted to save her job, according to a transcript of her testimony made public Monday. […]
In a statement with the chairs of the two other committees leading the inquiry, Schiff said the round of transcripts released Monday "demonstrate clearly how President Trump approved the removal of a highly respected and effective diplomat based on public falsehoods and smears against Ambassador Yovanovitch's character." […]
According to the intelligence community whistleblower complaint at the heart of Democrats' impeachment inquiry, Yovanovitch's tenure was cut short because she had run afoul of the then-prosecutor general in Ukraine, Yuri Lutsenko, and President Trump's personal lawyer Rudy Giuliani, who had been working to pressure the Ukrainian government to investigate the Biden family.
As Adam Schiff said during his press gaggle yesterday, Yovanovich was removed because her anti-corruption bona fides were getting in the way of Trump and Giuliani’s secret campaign to interfere in the 2020 U.S. election. Oh, and Sean Hannity was involved, too. You can read that part here if you want. My head's exploded enough for one day and it's only 8am.
CHEERS to the jewel in the Gem State's crown. On November 5, 1889 Idaho's constitution was ratified by voters with 12,398 votin' fer it and 1,773 votin' agin' it. To this day it remains the only state document that guarantees to each citizen life, liberty, and the pursuit of the perfect Russet potato.
JEERS to naughty Nazis. Oh, the Uberunterstrudelreichenfuhrer is not going to be happy with these three goose-stepping stooges:
Nazi Fail #1 American white supremacist Greg Johnson was arrested in Norway just hours before a planned appearance at a far-right conference over fears his “hate speech” could trigger violence, according to an official. Martin Bernsen, a spokesman for Norway’s domestic security agency, told CNN that Johnson was considered a threat, “not because of what he could do but because of his hate speech and his previously expressed support” for mass killer Anders behring Breivik [who] killed 77 people, including dozens of teenagers, in an attack on a youth camp in 2011. […] Norwegian authorities plan to deport Johnson as “quickly as possible,” said Bernsen.
Nazi Fail #2 Richard Spencer sought to cast his brand of clean-cut ethnic nationalism as a respectable conservative alternative to nazism, coining the term "alt-right" to refer to it and successfully attracting mainstream media interest. In this audio recording, posted Sunday by provocateur Milo Yiannopoulous and claimed to be of Spencer, a man is heard ranting about Jews and black people in a more traditionally far-right mode.
Nazi Fail #3 The FBI says it has arrested a white supremacist who was planning an attack on a Colorado synagogue, describing the plan as “domestic terrorism”. Richard Holzer, 27, of Pueblo, Colorado, is accused of plotting to attack the city’s Temple Emanuel synagogue. His co-conspirators included two undercover FBI agents. … Holzer was arrested on 1 November in Pueblo, after he had gone to a motel with two undercover agents to pick up explosives.
Somewhere in the hereafter, even Colonel Klink is face-palming.
CHEERS to dastardly deeds definitively denied. Happy Guy Fawkes Day & Bonfire Night! For the uninitiated:
Bonfire Night commemorates the failure of the Gunpowder Plot in November 1605 by a gang of Roman Catholic activists led by Warwickshire-born Robert Catesby. When Protestant King James I began his reign, English Catholics had hoped that the persecution felt for over 45 years under his predecessor Queen Elizabeth would finally end, but this didn't transpire so the Gunpowder Plot conspirators resolved to assassinate the King and his ministers by blowing up the Palace of Westminster during the state opening of Parliament.
Guy (Guido) Fawkes and his fellow conspirators, having rented out a house close to the Houses of Parliament, managed to smuggle 36 barrels of gunpowder into a cellar of the House of Lords—enough to completely destroy the building. […] Explosive expert Fawkes, who had been left in the cellars to set off the fuse, was subsequently caught when a group of guards checked the cellars at the last moment. The conspirators were all either killed resisting capture or—like Fawkes—tried, convicted, and executed.
Guy Fawkes Day is celebrated in the United Kingdom, and in a number of countries that were formerly part of the British Empire, with fireworks, bonfires and parades.
So, basically, it commemorates the time when an extremist organized a bunch of other extremists to weasel their way into the government and destroy its ability to govern. Or as we call it over here: a day ending in "y" in the Republican Freedom Caucus.
-
Ten years ago in C&J: November 5, 2009
JEERS to Darth Liar. It is becoming increasingly less controversial to state the obvious: Dick Cheney needs to go to jail. The latest of his exposed lies surprises me not a whit. Of course, he's calling it temporary amnesia:
Vice President Dick Cheney told the FBI he had no idea who leaked to the news media that Valerie Plame, wife of a Bush administration critic, worked for the CIA. ... Cheney's denials that he talked about [outed CIA agent Valerie] Plame are among the few things in the lengthy [2004] interview with the FBI that Cheney appeared certain about. ... Evidence at Libby's criminal trial showed that Cheney had told Libby about Wilson's wife in mid-June 2003.
So he lied to the feds that day. Which is kind of like saying, "He breathed air." Liz must be so proud.
-
And just one more…
CHEERS to blowing this popsicle stand. Whenever the shit gets too deep here on the bluish-brown marble, I head over to NASA's site to see if our new Space Force is conquering every ball of gas and rock in the known galaxy. Sorry to say the answer is no, so we'll just have to spend our days and nights gazing yonward and dreaming. This month’s major celestial events are mercury's trip across the sun, the beaver moon, and the evil doings of a demon star. Here's NASA's Preston Dyches with a preview of what you'll be seeing this month:
-
We now return you to your regularly-scheduled doom and destruction and Trump. Pardon the redundancy.
Oh, and a few programming notes: Senator Amy Klobuchar (D-MN) is on with Stephen Colbert tonight, Senator Cory Booker (D-NJ) is on The Daily Show, and Hillary Clinton is on the Late Late Show with James Corden. Have a tolerable Tuesday. Floor's open...What are you cheering and jeering about today?
-
Today's Shameless C&J Testimonial
If you're the creator of Cheers and Jeers and you go splash in a kiddie pool---any kiddie pool---there's a reasonable chance your going to be booed. The funny thing is Bill in Portland Maine doesn't understand this.
—Atrios
-